Early Risers.

[AndyB]

Meanwhile in other news my brother has been brought out of retirement but admits to being a bit rusty. I wasn't sure if he meant his skill set or surgeon's toolkit.

 

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

11 minutes ago, AndyB said:

might they sound a bit like Popes?

Only if they start using names like Pius, Leo, Innocent, Clement or Benedict.

[AndyB]

2 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Only if they start using names like Pius, Leo, Innocent, Clement or Benedict.

 I'm not sure some of them would be able to use a couple of those names and get away with it. 

 

Mind you the Queen Mother would probably have thought they were announcing cocktail hour. "Clement's here to see you, maam."

"Mine's a Bénédictine on the rocks"

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

The message that I hoped would not come has arrived.  I learned yesterday afternoon that Bristol Pride has been postponed.  This means among other things that I have a hotel booking to cancel.  That will be fun: I booked through Booking.com who say on the receipt that because it is so cheap (£128 for two nights is cheap, is it?  It is in Bristol) there will be no refund.  I will phone the hotel this morning and act dumb but it is debatable how much acting will be required.  If you don't ask, you don't get.

 

The fodder run yesterday was not a total success.  My normal type of bread was not available but at least there was bread.  Not so my cherished tins of baked beans and sausages, still absent after four visits to the store.  This is likely to bring out my deep-rooted streak of cussedness.  This could result in visiting another store, shock horror.  Also not a total success was the virtual Area Group meeting last night.  We learned painfully that Skype cannot cope with an 11-way conversation.  Fortunately one of our number is an IT manager by day and deployed his skills to switch us in mid-parley to something called Zoom, which did work.  Earlier in the day I had done a bit more m*d*ll*ng, including a task which I had funked for months but which turned out to be simple.   Blame confidence issues for that.

 

I am indebted to Mick Newbryford for reminding me that I should have put my bin out last night.  It will have to wait until I am decent following my long hot bath.

 

Best wishes to all.  We will need them for the foreseeable future

 

Chris

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Missing the flights into and out of Leeds Bradford Airport. Ryanair flew their planes out of here to Prestwick for storage.

 

Still quite a few cars passing by this morning. The bus service is much reduced and those that do run aren't busy.

 

I managed to get 3 items for miniature people to travel on parallel bits of nickel silver ready for painting, 4 more in preparation.

 

Some items to be posted today. Her indoors will do that while looking for bread. (Post Office is a counter in a local coop shop here)

 

So far looking at my ancestors 9 generations back. Need to check some of the scottish links. Might not be easy!

 

Positive thoughts to all ERs in these troubled times.

 

Time to....drink my mugatea!

 

Baz

[roundhouse]

The lowest that I have seen gas for in the Uk is £1.22 a litre. At the current exchange rates thats not far above the Canadian price!

 

Morning all.

 

Stay at home day 3 with no plans to do any food shopping.

 

Already been in the shed just after 4 am to work on the weighbridge building then back indoors to make her a cup of tea. Shes getting to enjoy this working from home with lay ins every day.

 

I have a tin of green paint arriving today so thet will mean that I can get the first coat on the layout's fascia. |In the past I have stianed the ply but the stian these days being water based takes two weeks to dry and with similar size fiddleyard boards as the N scale I want to make sure that they dont get mixed up once shows eventually recommence.

 

Neil - No urgency for the package from Fraggle rock but just wanted to make sure that I can get some before track is more sought after than loo rolls or there's further lockdowns. I suspect that I will start building the test track shelf around the shed next week then track laying will hopefully commence. Lawsons are still doing timber deliveries (yards lcosed for pickup) so will look at getting any extra timber from them.

 

Looks like anotehr nice day but cooler.

 

Stay safe all.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl,  inner Temple Hare, 3/84

4.5 hour plus 2 hours sleep both fairly solid which was good. 

 

I suspect with no outside pressure Prince Charles would choose Louis as his Royal name,  as he was so fond of Louis Mountbatten.  While checking it out,  Louise and Louis were very common names in the Mountbatten  family. 

 

If ever my brother heard JOHNATHON!!!!  he knew he was in trouble... 

 

We are down to £1:17 for diesel at TES and Co, petrol a couple of pence cheaper.. 

 

The frost pattern outside was a bit odd this morning,  Heavy frost almost snow like in some areas, none in others.. 

Ben the desperate Collie got me up early this morning,  he's just gone upstairs to get SWMBO... 

 

I see B&Q,  has gone to click and collect from the car park,  or home delivery, no going in the orange shed .

Once I've got a the order sorted out I think I'll get a home delivery.. 

 

I've made the decision to go tomorrow evening to the MRC and remove 2 of the 5 sections of the object being rebuilt,  and many items of materiels to do the work. There seems little point going there to sit on my own to work on it . I need those two sections so i can match and construct the remaining extension board and two scenic extension boards.. 

 

There will then a debate where to put it.  There is space in the railway shed,  but no heating ( yet) , less room in the Mobile home but heating.

I suspect we will then decant down to the mobile home some evenings , for hobby work. 

 

Today's work,

 Wave the chainsaw on a stick around,  chopping dead stuff for the weekend bonfire. 

More sanding the keel nose. 

Position the Acro-props so I can take the window out of the garage  and the rotten bits of wood supporting the roof. 

 

Time I think to put the porridge on.. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by TheQ

[Joseph_Pestell]

13 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

The lowest that I have seen gas for in the Uk is £1.22 a litre. At the current exchange rates thats not far above the Canadian price!

 

 

£1.09 in Hereford on Monday. And I read somewhere (here?) of 99p a litre at a supermarket.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Mainly blue sky with sunshine but there has been some frost.

Three bin lorries due today but I doubt if they'll all arrive. Council is prioritising food waste and general waste collections which is fair enough but I suspect that if recycling doesn't get collected people will start bunging everything in general waste.

The Boss is still not well,she cannot seem to shake off whatever it is she's got.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

P.S.  Q, I'm not sure Louis would go down well as the name of our future King.

Edited March 26, 2020 by grandadbob

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Louise and Louis were very common names in the Mountbatten  family. 

And in the Bourbon dynasty. A British King Louis would be quite amazing. The newspaper cartoonists would have a field day with orangutan images (courtesy of Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book").

[45156]

Morning All

 

Daily check in duly done.

 

Back later

Regards to All

Stewart

[BoD]

1 hour ago, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all

The message that I hoped would not come has arrived.  I learned yesterday afternoon that Bristol Pride has been postponed.  This means among other things that I have a hotel booking to cancel.  That will be fun: I booked through Booking.com who say on the receipt that because it is so cheap (£128 for two nights is cheap, is it?  It is in Bristol) there will be no refund.  I will phone the hotel this morning and act dumb but it is debatable how much acting will be required.  If you don't ask, you don't get.

 

 

For future reference Chris, most hotels will beat booking websites’ price if you phone them directly.  They don’t then have to pay the commission to the intermediary web site.

 

Morning all 

 

Stay safe and well.

[roundhouse]

56 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

Missing the flights into and out of Leeds Bradford Airport. Ryanair flew their planes out of here to Prestwick for storage.

 

 

I saw two planes out of Gatwick on Tuesday. Didn't see any yesterday but we aren't on the main flightpath.

 

I booked the hotel in St Louis for the NMRA convention although I have strong doubts that we will be able to go. However the hotel is allowing cancellation up to 24 hours before arrival so at least we have rooms incase we do make it.

Edited March 26, 2020 by roundhouse

[jamie92208]

4 hours ago, pH said:

 

Like my brother-in-law Harry. "Henry?". "No, Harry".

My late MiL was Bessie , Elizabeth, no Bessie.  

LikecQ's brother Beth knew shecwas in trouble when she heard ELIZABETH.  Funnily enough over here the official agencies struggle with the spelling of her name and several of them gave her as EliSabeth, much to her annoyance.

 

Anyway good moaning from a slightly chilly but very sunny place. We might even get a light overnight frost Beth has devised a polythene cover fir the raised bed with the courgettes  in.

 

Yesterdays fire was very successful. The centre pile of ash had a volcano style vent in it's side last night with a very warm and red core showing through. It could however be left quite safely.   This mornings task is to trim the undergrowth on our south westerley border so that we can actually see the fence.  More importantly it will save me from nearly being decapitated when mowing the grass.  This evening it's fish and chip night.  So that's the highlights of day 9/10 of isolation.

 

Keep safe out there et bon courage.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Thinking about the royal names.  I suspect Charles III might be frowned upon as the Later Jacobites regarded Bonnie Prince Charlie as Charles III. I gather that most people called him the Young Pretender.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

49 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I suspect with no outside pressure Prince Charles would choose Louis as his Royal name,  as he was so fond of Louis Mountbatten.  While checking it out,  Louise and Louis were very common names in the Mountbatten  family. 

Somehow I don't think so.

 

Too many people will think of this King Louis!

 

 

[Shedman5]

Morning, All well here, blue sky and sunshine again!

 

Settling into a rythm here  am = jobs garden and household, pm = time in shed, tea time out for a walk.

 

No sign of rain for a while which delays putting the feed and weed on the lawn as I refuse to get the sprinkler out.

 

Otherwise all fine.

 

Take Care All

 

Alan

 

[AndrewC]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Ruby Ridge is only about 40 miles North of here. There was also a neo-Nazi compound near the local town of Coeur d'Alene but they were shut down some years ago. Unfortunately I think there is still a lot of it hiding in the woodwork. However, Idaho is the fastest growing state in the US which is likely to affect the demographics quite a bit in time.

 

I remember that bunch having a Rally in Coeur d'Alene about 20 odd years ago. We were at Perkins in Hayden Lake when a group of them wandered in. I'm sure those sh!tweasels have livestock in their family trees twigs.

There was a reason that place was nicknamed Hatred Lake, along with Athol being changed to a-hole. The parking lot had filled with protesters during our breakfast. Fun to watch the circus unfold. Some biker for Jeebus stood toe to toe with one of the scrawny little nazis. Was like looking at Tyson Fury v Mr Bean. 

 

 

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

The lowest that I have seen gas for in the Uk is £1.22 a litre. At the current exchange rates thats not far above the Canadian price!

 

£1.16 at the Sainsbury's and Asda in Charlton. However, Canadian prices vary wildly. Edmonton AB was showing 77.9c the other day which is around £0.45 a litre. Calgary prices are only a few cents more. 

 

Moaning all from the borough of boredom. Looks like a lot of our work is going to be paused in the coming weeks. We are all operational but most of our clients are screwed. Especially one who's entire IT department is in India and they're locked down totally. Nobody from their supplier has home working capability. No plan B for them. That in turn impacts our project testing and implementation. Our support centres have a "follow the sun" service. For us that just means Poland gets over time in the mornings, and Japan gets it in the evenings. 

 

Ordered another 50kg of lump charcoal for the BBQ yesterday. Turns out their warehouse guy lives just around the corner. He dropped it off on his way home last evening. Same day service. Can't beat that. 

 

Not a hell of a lot else happening. "Jeff" from parcelfarce will be delivering beer from Craft Metropolis between 15:00-16:00. No surprise there as 99% of all our PF deliveries come at that time. It is just their standard route. 

 

 

Enjoy the day. 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by AndrewC
speeling erurz

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Very frosty this morning, the car and the black bin bag were well and truly rimed this morning. Papers yet to arrive but not at all surprised as many people had the same idea as me and are having them delivered. Now time to run a bath, be back later.

[bbishop]

And good morning all.  Lying in the bath yesterday, I was thinking about the Guildex layout challenge and decided that I needed to add another 4 inches to my layout, to make it 12 inches wide.   Richard (HH) knows what I'm burbling about and, yes, I'm still within constraints.  So - new baseboards, onto the Wickes site this morning and the supply of two sheets of 4 foot by 2 foot plywood would cost about £40 with delivery in over a fortnight.  No ta!

 

Plan B is to cut up the three boards that I've already built to make two and to use the offcuts from the fiddle yard boards to make the third.  Not pretty, but would work.  Then walking from the back room into the kitchen, I looked at the stack of backscenes for the big layout.  I measured them, and they are 4' x 1' so as plan C three of them will be requisitioned for Blindheim.    The undersides will be painted white as a bonus.  I can recycle the timber sides from the existing baseboards and just need new ends.

 

All I need now is for Guildex to be cancelled.  Bill

 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by bbishop

[bbishop]

Of course, I have the hazsuits if anyone would like to come over and help.  Bill

[Joseph_Pestell]

38 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Thinking about the royal names.  I suspect Charles III might be frowned upon as the Later Jacobites regarded Bonnie Prince Charlie as Charles III. I gather that most people called him the Young Pretender.

 

Jamie

It has usually been supposed that Charles would choose Edward as his regnal name.

 

Accepting his personal affection for Mountbatten, it would nonetheless be a controversial ("courageous") choice.

 

I still think it likely (if he survives his current brush with COVID-19) that he will pass directly to William.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Frosty earlier but sunny now.

Louis VIII of France was acclaimed but not crowned as King of England in the 13th Century. 
Tony

[AndrewC]

6 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Of course, I have the hazsuits if anyone would like to come over and help.  Bill

Is layout building considered a critical or key justification for travelling? 

 

Addendum: For you beer lovers out there, CAMRA has now cancelled the Great British Beer Fest scheduled for August. The main reason given is with the current situation they can't do any of the preparation work needed. Hopefully for me the Brussels BXL fest scheduled for a couple of weeks later will still go ahead. Same for Borefts in September. FreshFest in Haarlem is now iffy as it is 3 days before the Netherlands ban on gatherings expires. <insert a very very long string of rather naughty words here> Bloody Eurostar and Thalys will only offer voucher replacements and not refunds. Hotels aren't an issue. 

[Kingzance]

Morning,

 

I vote for arfur II, the first was used to having a butler and could play a mean jazz piano! As for his muse with those very long legs.........

 

The sun shines in a cloudless sky wherein smog is still present at low levels - no, not that sort of smog Stationmaster. The cowboys continue to make a racket, we have provisions for several days, recycle bin emptied yesterday and a delicious smoked haddock pie enjoyed last evening, one of SWMBO’s best and it used up some offcuts from Ian the fish man - who will be sadly missed until his supply chain starts to function again. Little unmentionable achieved yesterday as I was sidetracked with a request for another laptop to be used by grandkids but HandA order with little round things on straight rods and bearings for them were delivered by Hermes. IAs this was a rather good machine but with a Windows OS, numerous software updates were necessary before I strolled out as dusk fell and birds were in full voice on my journey to deliver it. In the evening, I continued to record the early life of your scribe - I still have forty years to cover but those years are more mundane so shouldn’t take as long.

 

As to holidays, I have a strong dislike of paraffin burning oversized cigar tubes and the cattle pens that one is forced to endure before being loaded into the same. SWMBO has to fight hard to get me to commit to a vacation because, let’s face it, isn’t retirement one long holiday? I therefore have no bookings that need cancelling and the money remains in my account gradually diminishing in value by the difference between Inflation and savers rates.

 

Ebenezer Scrooge wishes you all a safe day, one of no deterioration in your health and hopefully a day nearer the end of this present trial.